A Time Of Witches
by Gamma Orionis
Summary: An incident with a time-turner sends Bellatrix to a time when Witches were not tolerated. Written for bathtubblogger's "Hedwig, we're not in Kansas anymore" challenge. On temporary hiatus until my muse for it returns.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: Written for bathtubblogger's "Hedwig, We're Not In Kansas Anymore" challenge on the HPFC forum.

"A character of your choice (or mine, if you want to be challenged) is on a trip somewhere and finds themselves entangled in events there (historical or current)."

Character: Bellatrix

Time period: Medieval England (we'll get there soon, I promise)

Enjoy. I own nothing.

)O(

It was easy to be afraid, in the driving rain and biting cold or the English moors. And it was especially easy when you were alone, and lost.

Which Bellatrix was.

Fortunately, she had her wand with her, but that didn't do much good when, no matter how many times she used it to find north, she was blown off her course in seconds. And in the rain, she could easily miss the Riddle House, and even Little Hangleton, entirely.

Bellatrix squinted into the rain, trying to make out lights from the village. She had come from Great Hangleton, where she had, on her Master's orders, procured a time-turner from the home of a certain aging witch. She had believed that she could make it back to the Riddle House before the storm really hit. Never having been to the Riddle House, she couldn't apparate, and now she was stuck out on the moors, with only her wand and the time-turner that she had stolen for company.

"Bloody Hell," she muttered as lightning forked across the sky, followed immediately by a boom of thunder. Bellatrix knew that the odds of being struck by lightning were slim, among these rolling hills and crags, but she didn't fancy being proven wrong. Briefly, she considered apparating back to Great Hangleton, but she had been walking for nearly two hours before the storm started and she didn't want to have to take the trip again.

Bellatrix hesitated, then shielded her eyes from the rain, and looked around for somewhere to wait out the storm.

There was a small cave some meters up the side of a rocky hill. If she could just get into it, she could wait until the storm was over and then continue on to Little Hangleton.

She stuck her wand into the holder at her hip, then looped the time-turner around her neck for safekeeping, dug her hands into the rocks, and lifted herself up.

For a moment, Bellatrix clung to the rock face, then she pulled one foot back, searched for a foothold, and lifted herself slightly higher. She reached up as high as she could, grabbed onto whatever she could find, and lifted her other foot.

Then her handhold gave out.

Bellatrix had been clinging to a clump of what she had thought was quite well-attached shrubbery, but when she tried to put her weight on it, it pulled out of the stones, and send her reeling. Her other hand was gripping tenuously onto a lip of rock, and at the sudden force, her fingers slipped off it.

Bellatrix flailed, grabbed onto a root, hung, momentarily petrified, watching the time-turner spin wildly on its chain, thanking god that she thought to put it on instead of just holding it.

A brilliant flash of lightning threw the rocks into relief, and then thunder crashed, and Bellatrix, stunned by the sheer volume, lost her grip on the root, and was sent tumbling to the ground. She hit hard, and blacked out.


	2. Chapter 2

"You should know better than to bring strangers into our home."

"She would have died out there! I couldn't just leave her. The Bible says we must help those in need."

Bellatrix's eyes seemed glued shut. She was fairly sure she was lying on a bed, but it was hard and lumpy, and could have just been a blanket on the ground. There was a dull, painful throbbing in the back of her head, and her whole body felt itchy and sore.

_What happened_?

"That's all very well, but you still shouldn't bring people into our house! There are plenty of places we could have made up a bed for her without bringing her in! If it turns out that she's a…" his voice dropped to a whisper.

Bellatrix moved her fingers, just slightly. They had been woven tightly together and lain over her stomach as though she was praying. _What the Hell?_

"We don't want anyone to think we have anything to do with her."

She had fallen, she remembered. She had been on her way to Little Hangleton, and had tried to climb up a rock face to find shelter from the rain, and she had fallen. _Must have hit my head…_

"She was lying there in the rain, Geoffrey! If I hadn't brought her, she would have died out there!"

"Which is why we have stables, Isabel. She would have been fine in them."

Bellatrix forced her eyes open. They were gritty, and her vision blurred. Her neck ached, and she couldn't bring herself to turn it, so she just looked at what was directly above her. There were rotting rafters, and a thatched roof, and Bellatrix could only assume she was inside some sort of cottage. _Muggles really are barbaric – can't they even put proper roofs on their houses_?

"She's here now, Geoffrey. We can't throw her out."

"Of course we can. She's not awake."

Bellatrix cleared her throat. The talking stopped abruptly, and then a few hurried whispers that Bellatrix couldn't make out, and the sounds of footsteps. Someone leaned over her, and she was smothered with the scent of wet wool and unwashed hair.

"Do you speak English?" asked the woman who Bellatrix assumed was called Isabel. "_Latine loqui potes? An bhfuil Gaeil–_"

"I speak English," Bellatrix told her, and was overtaken with a fit of coughing.

"Get her a drink," said the man who had been talking, presumably Geoffrey. The woman – Isabel – moved away, and reappeared momentarily. Bellatrix's vision was still blurred, but she was able to make out a cup being held out towards her. She lifted one hand to take it, but her shoulder protested, and Bellatrix dropped her arm with a gasp of pain.

"Here," said Isabel, tipping the cup to Bellatrix's lips.

She sipped tentatively, then spat it out, horrified.

"Is something wrong?" Isabel asked.

Bellatrix sputtered and coughed. "That's repulsive! That can't be water!"

"Well, of course it's not," said Isabel. "Drinking water will make you ill. That's ale."

"_Ale_?" Bellatrix shrieked. "You're giving me _ale_? Right, that's it!"

She shoved the cup away from her face, paying mind neither to the putrid liquid splashing across her body nor the searing pain in her shoulder, and grabbed her wand from the holder at her waist.

"First off," she said, sitting up straight and pointing her wand at the couple, blinking to try to clear her vision, "Why am I here?"

Isabel looked helplessly between Bellatrix and Geoffrey. Now that Bellatrix was looking at the couple, she was struck by how odd they were. Isabel was a tiny, bird-like thing, and Geoffrey looked quite ill. Both of them stared, perplexed, at Bellatrix's wand.

"You were outside," Isabel said meekly. "In the rain. Lying on the ground. I brought you inside…"

"How long ago was this?"

Isabel shook her head. "A few hours, I suppose, I don't know…"

"Don't you have a clock?"

"A what?" Geoffrey asked, stepping in front of Isabel and looking at Bellatrix warily.

"A _clock_!" _Just my sort of luck to be found by the most ignorant muggles alive_.

"What is a clock? And what, in the name of God, are you doing with that stick?"

"_Crucio!_"

The spell caught Geoffrey in the chest and he stumbled, falling backwards into Isabel, who shrieked. Bellatrix lifted the curse, and sighed, feeling much better.

"Right," she said. "So you don't have a clock, you don't know how long I've been here… can you at least tell me where 'here' is?"

"What have you done to him?" Isabel squeaked, pressing her hands over her mouth and looking in horror at Bellatrix.

"I've cursed him, and if you don't answer me, I'll do the same to you!"

Isabel whimpered. "You _cursed_ him?"

"Didn't you hear me, woman?" Bellatrix stood up and advanced, wincing at the pain in her shoulder. "_Tell me where I am_."

"Our village," Isabel said, shrinking backwards.

"Little Hangleton?"

"Yes…"

"Well thank God for that." Bellatrix sighed, and reached for her throat, closing her fingers around the time-turner.

Her stomach sank.

She lifted it to eye level and stared, horrified, at the tiny hourglass. One bulb was shattered, and only a few grains of sand were still in it.

"Oh, bloody Hell," Bellatrix muttered, closing her eyes. _The Dark Lord will have my head for breaking this_.

"Will my husband be all right?" Isabel asked tearfully, interrupting Bellatrix's horrified musings.

"He'll be fine," she said, no more patience for this conversation. "Now, tell me how to get to the Riddle House, and I may let you live."

Isabel let out a shriek. "Please, have mercy, good Lady, I mean you no harm!"

"Then _tell me where the bloody Riddle House is_!"

"I don't know what you mean!" Isabel buried her face in her hands, and Bellatrix thought she heard a mumbled prayer through Isabel's fingers.

"If this is Little Hangleton, then you must know where the Riddle House is! I was told it has been here for generations!"

"That can't be right!" Isabel sobbed. "We only settled this village a few years ago!"

Bellatrix had the sudden, pronounced feeling of having the ground give way beneath her.

"What year is it?" she asked with great trepidation.

"It is…" Isabel sniffled, looking between Geoffrey, still on the ground, and Bellatrix, "It is the year of our Lord 1323."


End file.
